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A review by the_fabric_of_words
William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher
5.0
April is National Poetry Month and I was super-duper excited to read this! It's basically the flick in iambic pentameter, in Ian Doescher's wonderful Shakespearean / Hollywood mash-up style.
Marty's story is just as funny and engaging in 5 metrical feet as it is in the movie. There is a bit of language, some not-very-flattering portrayals of Libyan terrorists, and some awkward, sexually-charged situations, as in the movie, but never anything graphic or explicit.
I can just imagine the fun a 9th grade classroom would have with this!
Visit my website for a free, downloadable set of Readers Theater roles pages and a lesson plan for implementing them in a high school classroom reading of this delightfully funny book. And perhaps skip the traditional reading of R&J in 9th grade! I do wish my two teens' teachers had known about Doescher's books.
Teachers, please note: This play has the fewest speaking parts of any of Doescher's movie adaptations thus far. So, if your class is relatively small -- in the 20s -- it will still work well. If your class is more like 30+ students, plan on having fully half the class not read out loud for any given Act. This may work well, if you have English language learners who need time to listen and figure out how the movie and play correspond. On the other hand, if your class is antsy, I would look instead at teaching / using Verily: A New Hope, which has plenty of speaking roles for larger classes.
If you still choose to use this, it means you'll have to closely watch / record student readers on the Reading Role Sheets, to make sure all your students get a chance to read out loud. There is also no "Chorus" part in this play, at all, so no all-class opportunities for speaking / reading aloud, either.
As with Mean Girls, a Reader's Guide is included / printed in the back of the book.
It contains an explanation of iambic pentameter with examples drawn directly from the book, an explanation of using thee, thou, ye, thy, and thine, and a brief listing of the Shakespearean "hallmarks" of the text: the five act play, minimal stage directions, rhyming couplets at the end of scenes, asides, soliloquies, generous use of anaphora and extended metaphors, and in this one, songs ("The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News).
Quirk currently does not offer a teaching guide for this text, so I'd recommend using it and the film as a fun, educational way to end a semester or to end the school year.
I hope your students enjoy!
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Marty's story is just as funny and engaging in 5 metrical feet as it is in the movie. There is a bit of language, some not-very-flattering portrayals of Libyan terrorists, and some awkward, sexually-charged situations, as in the movie, but never anything graphic or explicit.
I can just imagine the fun a 9th grade classroom would have with this!
Visit my website for a free, downloadable set of Readers Theater roles pages and a lesson plan for implementing them in a high school classroom reading of this delightfully funny book. And perhaps skip the traditional reading of R&J in 9th grade! I do wish my two teens' teachers had known about Doescher's books.
Teachers, please note: This play has the fewest speaking parts of any of Doescher's movie adaptations thus far. So, if your class is relatively small -- in the 20s -- it will still work well. If your class is more like 30+ students, plan on having fully half the class not read out loud for any given Act. This may work well, if you have English language learners who need time to listen and figure out how the movie and play correspond. On the other hand, if your class is antsy, I would look instead at teaching / using Verily: A New Hope, which has plenty of speaking roles for larger classes.
If you still choose to use this, it means you'll have to closely watch / record student readers on the Reading Role Sheets, to make sure all your students get a chance to read out loud. There is also no "Chorus" part in this play, at all, so no all-class opportunities for speaking / reading aloud, either.
As with Mean Girls, a Reader's Guide is included / printed in the back of the book.
It contains an explanation of iambic pentameter with examples drawn directly from the book, an explanation of using thee, thou, ye, thy, and thine, and a brief listing of the Shakespearean "hallmarks" of the text: the five act play, minimal stage directions, rhyming couplets at the end of scenes, asides, soliloquies, generous use of anaphora and extended metaphors, and in this one, songs ("The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News).
Quirk currently does not offer a teaching guide for this text, so I'd recommend using it and the film as a fun, educational way to end a semester or to end the school year.
I hope your students enjoy!
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/